Patients, clinicians, decision makers, and other stakeholders depend on robust, evidence-based information to make informed health care decisions. Linking Medicaid data to other sources enables a deeper understanding of how Medicaid services and interventions influence health outcomes. Sharing insights and best practices from existing data linkage projects can support future linkage efforts that facilitate health outcomes research.
This report qualitatively assesses 11 Medicaid data linkage projects funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Secretary Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Trust Fund (OS-PCORTF) to understand data linkage approaches and share challenges and best practices for data linkage. The report also describes the impact of the linked datasets and identifies opportunities to strengthen data linkage infrastructure.